16 FOETRY OF FLOWERS. 
Alas ! it’s no thy neebor sweet, 
The bonnie Lark, companion meet ! 
Bending thee ’mang the dewy weet ! 
Wi’ speckled breast, | 
When upward springing, blythe to greet 
The purplin east. 
Cauld blew the bitter biting north 
Upon thy early, humble birth; 
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth 
Amid the storm, 
Scarce reared above the parent earth 
Thy tender form. 
The flaunting flowers our gardens yield, 
High sheltering woods and wa’s maun shield ! 
But thou, beneath the random bield 
O’ clod or stane, 
Adorn’st the histie stibble-field, 
Unseen, alane. 
There, in thy scanty mantle clad, 
Thy showy bosom sunward spread, 
Thou lift’st thy unassuming head 
In humble guise: 
But now the share uptears thy bed, 
And low thou lies } 
Such is the fate of artless maid, 
Sweet flowret of the rural shade{ 

